


Dead and Broken Things

by NotAFlyinToy



Series: How The World Fell Under Darkness [2]
Category: Overwatch (Video Game)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-09-16
Updated: 2016-09-16
Packaged: 2018-08-15 08:50:05
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,361
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8049928
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/NotAFlyinToy/pseuds/NotAFlyinToy
Summary: Soldier - fading, wounded, losing blood - remembers a simpler time.





	Dead and Broken Things

His world was a rubber band of pain, snapping back against his lower back with every miniscule movement. Training and experience told him that it wasn’t immediately life threatening, but the same experience and training also informed him that any wound that went untreated didn’t remain non-threatening for long.

 

Dragging himself across the linoleum, spreading dust out around him with every small pull and leaving a dark red smear in his wake. The moonlight that managed to squeak through the slit windows split the air, revealing particles that danced and shimmered, clinging to his visor as he pulled himself from cover to cover. After every break in open ground, he found himself pausing to take a shaky breath, check his rifle, tap at his visor to attempt to shake loose whatever glitch was causing his vision to dim slowly at the edges.

 

Footsteps echoed throughout the dilapidated nightclub, causing him to press his back against an overturned table with a small exhale of pain, his rifle clutched between his hands. He checked the safety, the small timer that counted down to his next available missile, briefly closed his eyes to center himself.

 

Voices, now, bootsteps moving slower, more cautiously. One gave a shout, gesturing to the smear of blood on the ground. He grit his teeth, slid a finger over the trigger as the steps came closer, ever closer.

 

_“Kept you waiting, Jack?” came a voice beside his ear._

 

_He turned, raised an eyebrow at Reyes as the larger man adjusted his beanie, his dark eyes trained on the neon-struck club below them and across the street. The city was alive and throbbing, pulsating with sound and activity that sang in his blood._

 

_Jack arched his back and rolled one shoulder, handing the binoculars to the Blackwatch agent. “Not too long,” he said, keeping his voice as flat as possible despite his jumping pulse._

 

_The dark skinned man rubbed an idle thumb against one thick tendril of mustache as he pressed the glass to his eyes, a slight frown coming over his lips - a motion Jack took note of, filed away._

 

_“Doesn’t look like much,” Gabriel grunted, mirroring Jack’s squatting pose, “are we sure our intel is good on this one?”_

 

_“Came from one of yours,” Jack said, lifting a shoulder. “You tell me.”_

 

_Gabriel grunted in response and Jack pretended not to notice the way the other man’s eyes glanced - briefly - towards his profile. Time passed between the two in comfortable silence, each watching the building. The people meandering across darkened streets, illuminated quickly in pink, searing light, were oblivious to the spectres on their roofs. Watching. Waiting._

 

Suddenly, the roar of a shotgun in the din made the soldier flinch forwards, the sound coming from beyond the searching footsteps against the linoleum. Someone screamed and turned as another bone - a neck - snapped in the dust-filled darkness. Machine gun fire erupted, punctuated by a rhythmic shotgun blasting, tearing through flesh and leather, sending foam, feathers, and metal to mingle with the dancing dust in the air.

 

Underneath it all, laughter. Dark laughter, dangerous laughter, _making him smile unbidden in response._

 

_“It’s true,” Jack said, offering a chuckle of his own over a steaming cup. Gabriel, seated beside him, with their backs against the concrete ledge of the building, shook his head._

 

_“This was when?” Reyes asked, setting his own cup down on the ledge and wiping his lips._

 

_“Early on,” Jack said, “back when Winston hadn’t quite gotten Athena up and running yet. She managed to find the… seedier side of the internet pretty close.”_

 

_“How did Lena respond?”_

 

_“Not… well,” Jack said, his lips twisting. “She thought it was a prank at first - called Winston up. I could hear their conversation from my office.”_

 

_Gabriel’s mirth suddenly disappeared, his eyes sliding to look at nothing, and Jack felt that invisible wall go up again, ever present since he’d officially moved into Overwatch HQ as the strike leader. Jack frowned into space, letting out a small, impatient sigh._

 

_“What-” happened to us? “do you see out there?”_

 

_Gabriel glanced over his shoulder, surveying the street. Jack took the opportunity to scowl at the side of Gabriel’s face before moving towards a pair of duffel bags on the roof, sifting through the equipment._

 

_“Looking for something?” Gabriel said, still looking towards the street._

 

_“Just making sure we have everything.”_

 

_“You’ve spent a lot of time with your head buried in those bags,” Reyes replied._

 

_Jack turned to look at him. He was still facing away._

 

_“I’m thorough,” came his response. At Gabriel’s scoff, Jack frowned. “What? Diligence gets results.”_

 

_“Absolutely,” Gabriel responded, voice thick with sarcasm, and Jack tensed, opened his mouth to respond._

 

“Won’t be long, now,” Reaper said, voice hallowed and echoing in the dust.

 

His boot pressed into Soldier’s wound lightly, and the prone man grabbed at it, gasping in pain. Cloak billowing, Reaper swirled around and moved a few paces away, stopping to examine the corpse of one of Soldier’s attackers, now with two large holes in him.

 

The rifle that the soldier had been clutching so closely was several yards away, out of easy reach, where Reaper had kicked it when he’d found his former commander.

 

“Should’ve known,” Soldier said, rolling onto his stomach and pushing himself up to brace on his elbows, “that you’d be here. The signal, the intel, all of it-”

 

“Trap,” came the response - the tone bored, idle.

 

“Why?”

 

“For you,” Reaper responded, still facing away from him.

 

Soldier grunted, struggling to his knees, wincing behind his visor as his legs shook. “So what now?”

 

Reaper turned, then, his mask an enigma, his face hidden away.

 

_“We wait.”_

 

_“If we wait, he’ll be gone,” Jack argued, checking his weapon, testing, loading. “We need to go now while he won’t be expecting us.”_

 

_“You’re the boss,” came Gabriel’s response, stretching out sore muscles as he stood. Moments ago, a black car had sailed up, let out a single passenger, and had moved on. The lone man made his way into the club - neon sign now darkened, shut for the night - and nobody had come out._

 

_Jack nodded, frowned. “Gabriel,”_

 

_The other man turned to look at him._

 

_“When this is over - when we get back, we need to talk.”_

 

_“Sure,” came the sardonic reply, setting Jack’s teeth on edge._

 

_“Let’s move.”_

 

“We can’t move him yet,” came a worried, cockney accent. It buzzed above his head, somewhere between reality and fantasy.

 

“We don’t know how many more of them are out there, either,” pointed out another voice - deep, intelligent. “Jack? Are you with me, Jack?”

 

“I hate to interrupt this otherwise touchin’ reunion,” came a third voice - unfamiliar, accented, punctuated by a nervous laughter - “but we’re surrounded by freshly dead bodies and I’d hate to meet the bloke that made ‘em.”

 

“Got no choice,” said the intelligent voice. Soft hands cradled him, lifted him. “Make a hole for us, Mr. Fawkes.”

 

“No trouble,” called the manic voice.

 

“We gotcha, Jack,” said the first voice, “just hold on tight.”

 

_“Where’d he go?” blurted the soldier, muffled through the fresh bandage around his head. An Overwatch strike team of six were around him - Reinhardt, Ana, and Tracer chief among them._

 

_“Who?” Tracer asked, over the clanking of Reinhardt’s armor as the three of them moved - well, limped - to the Overwatch medbay._

 

_“Gabriel. He was with me when we went in.”_

 

_“My friend, there was no one but you inside,” boomed the big German._

 

_Before Jack could question further, he was being fussed over by Dr. Zeigler, who tested his arms and legs, felt his head for a lump, clucked her tongue over him._

 

_“You’ll be good as new, Jack,” she promised, “so long as you lie still. Let the medicine do its work.”_

 

 _Jack lay down on the rickety bed, closed his eyes_.

 

When he re-opened them, he was surrounded by friends who hadn’t seen him in years, friends who had assumed him long dead. Friends to whom the name Gabriel was a distant, unpleasant memory, and to whom Reaper was a current threat.

 

Soldier closed his eyes, let the exhaustion take him, and mourned.


End file.
